The Laughing Father
by ariel2me
Summary: Cynics claimed it was merely wounded pride, not love for his daughter, which caused Lyonel Baratheon to renounce his allegiance to the Iron Throne and declare himself the Storm King.


He is not quite old, but certainly of an advanced age to be a father for the first time. _Not my fault_ , he says, to anyone who cares to listen (and to plenty who do not), _fate never fashioned me to be_ _a lord who must produce trueborn heirs._

Fate changes its mind, or perhaps the gods do, and a few unforeseen deaths later, Ser Lyonel the famed tourney hero, that famous (and some say infamous) knight dubbed the Laughing Storm, is suddenly Lord Lyonel Baratheon, Lord of Storm's End and Lord Paramount of the Stormlands, in desperate need of a wife and an heir.

Women he has had plenty, of all shapes and stripes, from nubile daughters of tavern keepers to discontented wives of aging lords, but having a wife of his own had never been a priority before. Voices clamor to give him instructions disguised as advice: _Marry the daughter of one of the other Lords Paramount, my lord, to build a strong alliance with another region of the realm. Marry the daughter of one of your own bannermen, my lord, to honor them and thus ensure their loyalty. But if you choose a bride from this House, then that House will feel slighted. Choose a bride from that House, and that other House will never honor your lady wife in a manner befitting the Lady of Storm's End._ And on … and on … and on … endless chatter that grates on his ears as much as the sound of his booming laughter used to grate on the ears of his tourney opponents.

Finally he chooses a cousin, his Baratheon cousin Jocelyn. It seems the least troublesome choice for a bride. Who could fault him for choosing one of his own kind after all? Jocelyn has the look of a shy, retiring maiden, never quite meeting his gaze at their wedding feast, her tongue saying naught but ' _yes, my lord_ ' and ' _as you wish, my lord_.'

Though, she calls him _'Lyonel'_ fast enough once they are finally left alone in their bedchamber.

* * *

The prince who was once the boy who spilled wine while trying to convince Lyonel to be a champion for the tall hedge knight in a trial by seven is already a father himself at one-and-twenty, while Lyonel is still waiting for his first child to be born. He listens with amusement as Aegon extols the joy of fatherhood, recounting each and every marvelous deed of the two-month-old babe named in honor of that tall knight who is now a proper knight, a hedge knight no longer.

 _A young father is allowed his fancies after all_ , Lyonel thinks, smiling an indulgent smile slightly laced with derision. Though, of course he himself could not imagine ever being so fascinated with a mere babe, that noisy and smelly creature who eats, shits, howls, bawls, and seemingly does naught else.

"They will be the closest of companions, my son and yours. Let us drink to that," Lyonel proposes, after Aegon _finally_ runs out of tales to tell about his magnificent little son. Proud father and prospective father both empty their wine goblets in one swift, decisive motion.

* * *

The babe is covered with a white cloth from neck to toe when it is handed to him, and already he knows. He knows that the son he has been hoping for has been denied him, for the maester would have been proudly parading the babe's manhood for all to see, had it been a boy.

 _What a waste. All that pain for nothing,_ he thinks, sparing a thought for his lady wife, for he has grown very fond of Jocelyn after all (though still not fond enough to keep only to her bed, of course.) She will have to go through it again, to give him a son. _This_ babe will not do. A son. He needs a son.

Something warm slips through his fingers. She pees, that dreadful creature! The maids look terrified, whispering among themselves. Even the maester hurries to relieve him of the babe. He frowns. What do they fear he would do, strangle the little creature because it pees on him? Because it is not a boy?

She screams, loudly and lustily, when the maester tries to take her from her father's arms. Not a pitiful cry, or a heart-rending one, but an angry, defiant howl. He looks at her, _really_ looks at his daughter for the first time. A feisty creature, this one. He laughs, laughs the booming laugh that used to terrify his tourney opponents. She stops howling at once. There is a slight turn of the corner of her mouth that he is convinced is a smile, but it is gone before he could remark on it to the maester.

Never mind. She smiles only for _him_ , only for her father, not for the maester. That is only right and proper.

* * *

He chooses her name, to everyone's surprise. They all think he would not be interested enough, that the Laughing Storm would be content to leave it to his lady wife to choose the name for a mere daughter.

 _Argella, like the daughter of the last Storm King_ , he decides.

 _Argella, like the last Storm Queen, for she was a queen in her own right, if only for too short a time, and not just someone's daughter_ , Jocelyn reminds him.

 _Is that not an ill-omen name, my lord? She was the last of the Durrandons, the last of that line_ , his maester frets.

 _She was the mother of all Baratheons,_ Lyonelcounters. _It is only right to honor her,_ Jocelyn adds, herself a Baratheon by both birth and marriage.

* * *

Argella, _his_ Argella, takes her first step before Aegon's Duncan, despite the boy being older by many moons. _Four_ , Lyonel insists, holding out his fingers proudly, when Aegon and Betha stop at Storm's End on their journey back to King's Landing from Raventree Hall. _Only slightly more than three_ , Jocelyn clarifies.

Later, in Lyonel's solar, Aegon would ask, in a question not phrased as a question, _You are not disappointed, that she is not a boy._

Of course he still wants a son, he insists. What man wouldn't? _But she is still precious to me. A son can come later. My wife is still young._

* * *

He carries her on his back, all around the castle, even in the courtyard.

 _I'm a horse_ , he says. _No, a dwaaaagon_ , she contradicts him.

 _A fierce fire-breathing dragon_ , he says, making the appropriate scary faces. She laughs, touches his face and says, _Noooooo, a cuddly dwagon._

He does his duty in the marriage bed often and enthusiastically enough, but years passed and Argella is still his only child. The last storm king had been wracked with fear and desperation, as the years passed and his only heir remained only his maiden daughter. Lyonel knows he should be feeling the same; that he, too, should be wracked by the same fear and desperation as Argilac Durrandon. He tells himself that he is, he convinces others that he is, but deep down, he is not.

It is not that he now thinks women could rule as well as men, or that they could rule at all, other than as pawns or puppets of their husbands. It is only that he thinks his daughter is different, that _his_ Argella is special. She will not grow to be like other women. She is _his_ daughter after all, _his_ flesh and blood.

* * *

The son finally arrives, a boy he names Ormund after the storm kings of old. There is a feast, a grand feast to celebrate the birth of the true heir to Storm's End, for a girl could only be a temporary heir until her brother is born, and there would have been no point celebrating her birth with a grand feast, no matter how much her father purports to love her.

* * *

She is cleverer than her brother, her wit quicker, her determination stronger, her flashes of pride and fury closer to Lyonel's own.

Ormund is terrified of his father, the way Argella never is.

 _He is afraid of disappointing his father_ , Jocelyn says. _Afraid of not measuring up to his father. Of not being the heir you want and expect him to be._

 _He is too afraid by half! Why can't my son be as fearless as my daughter?_

* * *

The fourth son to a fourth son is never meant to be king, but fate changes its mind, or perhaps the gods do, and a few unforeseen deaths later, Prince Aegon is now King Aegon, Fifth of His Name, dubbed Aegon the Unlikely.

Lyonel is sincerely glad, for Aegon's sake, but there is also a voice in his head whispering, _If I cannot make my Argella the Lady of Storm's End, then perhaps I could make her queen of the whole realm._

* * *

The Tully girl looks a sallow, drab creature sitting beside his shining daughter. And the Redwyne girl is a mere child of nine, still hankering for her dolls perhaps, Lyonel thinks derisively.

But of course, the heir to the throne deserves only the best, deserves so much better than his younger brothers, just like his Argella deserves nothing less than the future king of the whole realm.

* * *

He blames Ormund, at first. His son is in King's Landing serving as the king's squire, in close proximity to Prince Duncan, and yet he never breathes a word about the prince's plan for treachery and dishonor.

 _He couldn't have known_ , Argella defends her brother.

 _He should have known. He should have been looking out for his sister's interest. I should have known. I should not have been so foolish as to trust -_

She interrupts him, quickly and vehemently. _My brother and my father are not the ones at fault._

He looks at her, _really_ looks at his daughter. He knows what he has to do, has known it all along since the news of Duncan's secret marriage first reaches him.

* * *

Ormund pleads with his father to be the one to meet Ser Duncan in single combat. "I will not disappoint you, Father. I will not disappoint my sister."

"This is _my_ battle," he says, "my fight to win." Though, he could not help but think, if Argella had been his son and heir instead of Ormund, he would have been more than willing to entrust him with the task.

* * *

"Find me a husband from across the Narrow Sea, Father. I refuse to make a life here, with the whole realm pitying me, condescending to me. _There goes the poor woman thrown over by Prince Duncan for his precious Jenny. There goes the Princess of Dragonstone who never was, the Queen who never was, the Queen Mother who never was._ I will not have it! I would rather die than live with their condescension, with their contempt and mockery disguised as pity. "

Her pride is a mirror of _his_ pride, her determination as strong as his own; that is the reason he loves her best of all his children after all.

He finds her a husband from Volantis, with the blood of Old Valyria flowing in him, with the look of Old Valyria as well. Duncan never had that look, despite his Targaryen blood, favoring his mother's Blackwood features, with dark hair and dark eyes, as dark as his treachery.

A silver prince for his Argella, a prince who is not a prince at all, only the son of a very rich merchant, Lyonel thinks, bitterly. She deserves so much better, his Argella. She deserves to be queen of the whole realm, to be the mother of a long line of kings. But he could not even make her the Storm Princess, the daughter of the Storm King, he who had failed in his short-lived rebellion.

She does not look back, when the ship taking her to her new life in Volantis sets sail. She does not turn around for one last look at the home she is leaving behind, at the family she is leaving behind. At the father she is leaving behind.

"I will not wither and pine, Father," she had promised him. "I will not die of heartbreak. I will not give them that satisfaction. The best revenge is living well."

He is proud of her, he truly _is_ , and yet the voice in his head is screaming, _What about me? What about your old father you are leaving behind?_

"Daughters leave," Jocelyn says, trying to console him. "They marry and they leave home, to build a life and a home of their own. That is the way of things. Mothers have always known that."

"I am not her mother!"

"And she is not only _your_ daughter. She is -"

He is no longer listening to his wife's words. It is only right, he thinks, only fitting, only _just_ , that Aegon should lose his daughter as well. He is losing his after all.

* * *

Jocelyn says, "Perhaps the best revenge of all is to make Rhaelle love you like a father, to make her forget her own father."

He scoffs. "You are only saying that because you pity the girl. Because you think I have been mistreating her, that I have been too harsh with her."

"That may be true, but am I wrong, in the substance of the matter?"

She is not wrong, he has to admit. It _would_ be the most _delicious_ revenge of all.

So for a time he tries. He really does. He puts a smile on his face and sweet honey on his tongue when he speaks to Aegon's little daughter. But it is no use. He could not keep it up for long. He could not stand even the sight of her. Her greatest sin is not that she is Aegon's daughter, not even that she is Duncan's sister. Rhaelle's greatest sin is that she is not _his_ daughter, _his_ beloved Argella. Rhaelle could never replace the daughter he lost. She could never measure up to his golden Argella. No one could.

He ignores Rhaelle completely from then on. She is only nominally his cupbearer. She spends all her time being Jocelyn's companion. He forgets she even exists at times.

He does not forget his daughter. She is in his dreams, even in his waking moments.


End file.
